Thesis--Princeton University. / Bibliography: p. 323-337.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2004. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Stephanie Newman.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Central Florida, 2009. / Adviser: Spencer Downing. Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-100).

In the early 1980s, a particular kind of “tween” (children aged 10-14) ghost story emerged. Through examining multiple examples of tween ghost stories (such as Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn, Stonewords by Pam Conrad, and Time Windows by Kathryn Reiss), this paper illustrates the ways in which these stories are remarkably consistent in nature, and then investigates this sub-genre’s specific and consistent articulation of the struggle of moving away from childhood and into the teenage years. By using a ghost to create a situation so off balance (a ghost who is stuck, a protagonist who is in flux), the tween ghost story is uniquely and cleverly designed to help the protagonist navigate through the scary situation of growing up.

<p>The present BA thesis is an analysis and a close reading of the French author Gabrielle Wittkop's novel Le Nécrophile (1972). The analysis consists of two parts. The first part focuses on the story and can be described as an attempt to interpret the engine of the history. The second part of the analysis focuses on the narrative; how the story is told. Le Nécrophiles main motif is re-encoding the representation of death in art and literature, traditionally conceived as a beautiful female corpse. The narrative embodies death as different of body types – men, women, old people, childen - and hence avoids to produce death as the female Other. By the use of different methods, such as metaphores, focalizing etc., the corpse becomes something more than a passive object, now threatening and interacting. In the novel necrophilia is described as a higher form of love. The historical view of sexuality as divided into high/low is strongly codified from a gender perspective; the higher form of love is associated with masculinity and the lower form with femininity. In Le Nécrophile the classification of high/low is based on life and death instead of masculinity and femininity; a new way of staging the binery pairs high/low.</p>

The present BA thesis is an analysis and a close reading of the French author Gabrielle Wittkop's novel Le Nécrophile (1972). The analysis consists of two parts. The first part focuses on the story and can be described as an attempt to interpret the engine of the history. The second part of the analysis focuses on the narrative; how the story is told. Le Nécrophiles main motif is re-encoding the representation of death in art and literature, traditionally conceived as a beautiful female corpse. The narrative embodies death as different of body types – men, women, old people, childen - and hence avoids to produce death as the female Other. By the use of different methods, such as metaphores, focalizing etc., the corpse becomes something more than a passive object, now threatening and interacting. In the novel necrophilia is described as a higher form of love. The historical view of sexuality as divided into high/low is strongly codified from a gender perspective; the higher form of love is associated with masculinity and the lower form with femininity. In Le Nécrophile the classification of high/low is based on life and death instead of masculinity and femininity; a new way of staging the binery pairs high/low.

This study was a comprehensive evaluation of population reconstruction techniques. Population reconstruction techniques are population estimation methods that calculate a minimum population size based on age-specific harvest data (Downing 1980, Roseberry and Woolf 1991). Population reconstruction techniques share the following characteristics: 1) utilization of catch-at-age data and 2) backward addition of cohorts to estimate a minimum population size. I developed a questionnaire to survey the biologists participating in this survey to determine the most common reconstruction technique used to estimate population sizes of exploited white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and black bear (Ursus americanus). Downing reconstruction (Downing 1980) was the most commonly used reconstruction technique among biologists participating in this study. Based on a comprehensive literature review and discussions with state biologists, I decided to evaluate virtual reconstruction (Roseberry and Woolf 1991) and develop a new reconstruction technique: Reverse Order reconstruction. I developed a quantitative population model in Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 to evaluate the ability of the 3 reconstruction techniques to estimate population sizes given a variety of conditions. I evaluated the effects of stochasticity on reconstruction population estimates by incorporating different levels of environmental stochasticity (i.e. process error) and measurement error in the generated or "known" population. I also evaluated the effects of collapsing age classes and aging biases on population estimates. In all conditions, Downing and virtual reconstruction were underestimates of the actual population size. Reverse Order reconstruction more closely estimated the actual population size, but is also more data-intensive than the other 2 methods. Measurement error introduces more uncertainty in the reconstructed population estimates than does process error. The population simulation model proved that Downing and virtual reconstruction are consistently underestimates and the percent underestimation is due to lack of inclusion of a natural mortality rates in population estimation. I used the results of the questionnaire to characterize the harvest datasets of the states participating in this study. From these results, I chose two harvest datasets to further analyze: a white-tailed deer harvest dataset from North Carolina and a black bear harvest dataset from Pennsylvania. I analyzed these datasets with Downing and virtual reconstruction. I also applied the quantitative population model to these datasets to evaluate the effect of increasing levels of measurement error on the variance of the population estimates. I found that Downing and virtual reconstruction estimated the population sizes very closely to one another, within 5%, for both datasets, and the reconstructed estimates closely tracked the actual harvest numbers. I also found that increasing levels of measurement error increased the variance associated with reconstructed population estimates and may decrease the ability of these techniques to accurately capture population trends. / Master of Science

Sweet Briar House is one of the best documented sites in Virginia, with sources ranging from architectural drawings and extensive archives to original furnishings. Sweet Briar House was purchased by Elijah Fletcher, a prominent figure in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1830. Thirty years later it passed into the possession of his daughter Indiana Fletcher Williams, and remained her home until her death in 1900. In her will, Williams left instructions for the founding of Sweet Briar Institute, an educational institution for women that exists today as Sweet Briar College. This dissertation examines Sweet Briar House in three distinct phases, while advancing three theses. The first thesis proposes that the double portico motif introduced by Palladio at the Villa Cornaro in the sixteenth century became the fundamental motif of Palladianism in Virginia architecture, generating a line of offspring that proliferated in the eighteenth century and beyond. The Palladian plantation (Sweet Briar House I, c. 1800) featured this double portico. In 1851, following the return of the Fletcher children from an extended Grand Tour of Europe, the house was remodeled as an Italianate villa (Sweet Briar House II, 1851-52). The second thesis advances the contention that by renovating their Palladian house into an asymmetrical Italianate villa, the Fletcher family implemented an ideal solution between the balanced façade that characterized the Palladian Sweet Briar House I and the fashion for the Picturesque that dominated American building in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1876, the Williams family traveled to the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, where visitors were presented with an unimaginable array of artistic possibilities from countless eras and nations, exactly the conditions that the Aesthetic Movement needed to flourish in America. The third thesis maintains that the Williams family’s decision to transform Sweet Briar House into an Aesthetic Movement retreat was inspired by their reaction to the Centennial, and in particular by their appreciation for the Japanese objects presented there.